The present application is directed to a system and method for administering financial-aid information and services to potential and existing students of post-highschool education facilities and/or their parents, and more particularly, to a system and method for administering financial-aid information to such parties, where the content and operation of the system and method are customizable by the post-highschool education facilities that utilize the system and method of the present application.
Internet users over the age of 16 in the United States and Canada have reached numbers in excess of 90-million the date of this application. Therefore, it is clear that Internet access is becoming universal. Parents and potential students are increasingly using the Internet to communicate and research topics of interest. In fact, 77% of parents polled in a recent research study by the applicant had indicated that they would be interested in obtaining information about financial-aid for post-high school education facilities over the Internet. Additionally, students are increasingly using the Internet while at college. At the time of the present application, 80% of all college students own computers and 60% of all college students check or browse the World Wide Web daily.
It is clear, therefore, that parents and potential students are increasingly using the Internet to research colleges as their first research stop. As a result, most colleges and universities include their own Website on the Internet, from which parents and potential students can find virtually anything they need to know about the institution. It is obvious that parents and potential students will begin to expect that colleges and universities to include a dynamic Internet site that provides financial-aid information and services to the students.
A problem with this expectation is that many financial-aid offices of universities and colleges do not include the substantial time, money and resources involved with creating such a dynamic Web-based financial-aid information and service product.